COLUMBIA, S.C. — It was over steak and more than three hours of conversation that stretched deep into the night that Marco Rubio sealed the endorsement of Gov. Nikki Haley — setting himself on the path to squeeze out a second-place finish in South Carolina that has revitalized his candidacy.

The meal at the governor’s mansion came last Monday, on President’s Day fittingly enough, according to two people familiar with the evening’s events. Around the table in the informal family dining room — not the official one reserved for state affairs — were Rubio and Haley, their spouses Jeannette and Michael, and four of their top aides, Heath Thompson and Katie Baham Gainey for Rubio and Rob Godfrey and Tim Pearson for Haley.

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The meal lasted so long that Rubio’s wife, Jeannette, had to leave early to get back to the kids. Rubio and Haley plowed ahead.

The two 44 year olds bonded over their young children (each has a middle school-aged child), their shared heritage as state legislators, and swapped stories about Afghanistan (where Rubio has visited as a member of the Foreign Relations committee and Michael Haley, a captain in the South Carolina National Guard, had served).

Haley had a key question for Rubio: What would her endorsement mean to him politically and how would he use it?

A lot, as it would turn out. Exit polls suggest Haley’s backing lifted Rubio dramatically as late-deciding voters broke heavily his way. More than one in four South Carolina voters said Haley's endorsement was an important factor for them and Rubio won dominant plurality of them, 47 percent.

But when Rubio exited the governor’s mansion late Monday, he did not yet know his fate. He would have to wait until the next afternoon, just before 4 p.m., when Haley called to tell him the news.

They would campaign together the next day, and the day after and the day after that. Haley had instructed her staff that she would do whatever Rubio’s team asked. It would include filming her endorsement, which was quickly cut into a TV ad, recording robo-calls to boost turnout at Rubio events, and barnstorming the state nonstop for four days.

“I hear the sound of the cavalry,” Sen. Tim Scott, one of Rubio’s other top endorsers in the state, said at event after event as he introduced Haley, who has an astronomical approval rating in the 80s among likely GOP voters.

As they stood together on stage in Greenville on Thursday — an African-American senator, Indian-American governor, Cuban-American presidential candidate and a white congressman Rep. Trey Gowdy — Haley declared, “This new group of conservatives taking over America looks like a Benetton commercial.”

But despite a raucous victory rally here in Columbia on Saturday night, big questions remain about Rubio’s future. Rubio has yet to win a single primary state, and there is little sign that he’ll be competing against Ted Cruz for anything except the No. 2 spot in the Nevada caucus next Tuesday and the slew of states that vote March 1 on Super Tuesday.

Trump romped in South Carolina after dominating in New Hampshire and Republican strategists said that Trump shows no signs of weakening.

"Trump's people aren't going to move," said Chris LaCivita, a former senior adviser to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul during his 2016 bid. "He may have lost a couple points in the last week, but his people aren't budging. They are going to stick with him come hell, or high water, until or unless the field whittles dramatically."

Still, Saturday represented Rubio’s best night yet as a presidential candidate. Shortly before Rubio took the stage Saturday, his chief rival for the affection of the donor community, fellow Floridian Jeb Bush, dropped out.

“This has become a three-person race,” Rubio declared. “And we will win the nomination.” (John Kasich, who lagged in the singled digits is campaigning heavily in the Midwest and Northeast, disagreed. His chief strategist, John Weaver, proclaimed a “four-person race.”)

Though Rubio’s team hailed his virtual tie with Cruz — more than 10 percentage points behind Trump — as a huge victory following their fifth-place flop in New Hampshire, South Carolina had once been seen as the Rubio operation’s best hope for an early state victory. His team is comprised of numerous operatives with deep roots in the state, including Thompson, Baham Gainey, campaign manager Terry Sullivan and pollster Whit Ayers, while his PAC has ties to the state, including its head Warren Tompkins, whose office is just steps from the statehouse in Columbia.

Going forward, Sullivan is scheduled to hold a conference call on Monday to brief donors on the South Carolina results and Nevada game plan. Rubio's finance team has been aggressively trying to lock down Bush and Chris Christie donors and bundlers in recent days, nabbing Christie’s top D.C. fundraiser, David Tamasi, over the weekend.

Rubio’s super PAC reported raising $2.5 million in January, including $1 million from billionaire Larry Ellison, bringing his total giving to $4 million. The super PAC ended January with $5.6 million but has spent heavily on ads since then.

“I think Rubio caught what a campaign likes to catch — emotion and momentum,” said Katon Dawson, former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. “Usually endorsements don’t matter that much in South Carolina, but this time with the phenomenon known as Donald Trump and the attention he got these voters, [endorsements] got Rubio a look and another look.”

No endorsement was bigger than that of Haley, who had actually met quietly with not just Rubio but Cruz and Bush for similar dinners at the governor’s mansion after New Hampshire. She personally called to tell both she wasn’t endorsing them.

“At the end of the day she went through the process to figure out who she was going to vote for, and when she made the decision she was going to vote for Marco, everything else fell into place,” said Pearson, a senior Haley adviser. Rubio’s campaign declined to comment on their dinner or endorsement process.

Haley, long considered a rising GOP star, has grown to national prominence in the last year. She is considered a potential vice-presidential pick, after taking down the Confederate flag from the state Capitol last year and delivering an anti-Trump official GOP response to the State of the Union in which she urged voters not to “follow the siren call of the angriest voices.”

Haley brushed aside any talk of ticket-joining while on the stump with Rubio. The dinner last Monday represented the most time they had spent together since they met back in 2010, when Rubio was first running for Senate and Haley for governor.

“I think they had respect for each other 10 days ago,” Pearson said, “and they’re friends now.”